I am not a sentimental person; but Tuesday night I was rocked to the core.

My wife and I are raising three mixed-race children; I am the black, she is the white. We have a nice life, but sometimes I worried. I worried about how our children were going to identify themselves to others and I wondered how they will feel about me and their mother while growing up.

In our community, I am still a minority; however there is a wide range of people and experiences with which my children interact; but to know going forward, for the next four years, they will see a man of color – one the same hue as their father and uncle – being articulate, being vigorously debated, having state dinners, making decisions that matter for millions of people and who has a wife which reminds them of one of their grandmothers really affected me.

After Obama was elected, my wife and I spoke about race (as it occasionally comes up in our lives) and she said, “He is not African-American, he is half white…” For the record, she said the same thing years ago when Halle Berry won the Oscar.

My wife’s point asks: What about the mother? My wife doesn’t consider our children Black, but hers, and she feels the mother’s genes should be considered as well. So my wife and I came up with a name for my wife’s condition: White woman with Black kids syndrome.

For the first time, Wednesday night, my five year old daughter said she was African-American; but to be accurate, our kids may have to identify themselves as half Black, a quarter Irish and a quarter Italian.

However, America considers them Black because of me.

Now my children will see someone, who looks like me and who is not an actor, or a sports star or an entertainer, but as a person who has to make important decisions about life and limb much like their father, but only on a smaller scale.

It was a selfish racism which, I felt, would deter America from electing a person of color. There have been times in my life where, as a father, I have held myself back with feelings of inferiority and hoped that my fear would not translate or be seen by my children.

Now I feel I have a little bit of help from Mr. Obama. He won’t be able to pay my mortgage, but he may be able to alleviate a burden my children would have to bear because of me – and that was a point on which both my wife and I agreed.

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps — instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of “Obama Bucks” — a phony $10 bill featuring Obama’s face on a donkey’s body, labeled “United States Food Stamps.”

The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.

I realize it hurts that Hillary didn’t get the nomination, especially after all of the early media attention that said she was the inevitable candidate. It was a historical moment on its own, providing clear evidence of the cultural shift that finally allowed a woman to become known as the most credible candidate for the Democratic ticket.

I realize that she was going to vindicate every woman, create a victory for every female held back and left behind by this sexist culture of ours. She called much-needed attention to the inequalities faced by women in America and the unfulfilled promises of liberty and justice for all.

Now the internet is ablaze with former Hillary supporters promising to either vote for McCain, to not vote at all or to write in Hillary on election day. As a woman, from my heart to yours, I ask you to remember why you supported Hillary in the first place. You care about the plight of women, you are sick and tired of being treated like a second-class citizen, you want change to come and you want it now.

I ask you to consider how staying home on election day, writing Hillary in or voting for McCain abandons that clarion call.

Will you work further destruction on your sisters and daughters in order to protest Hillary’s loss of the nomination? Will you work to secure a darker future for all women, now that your first choice is no longer available?

There are some who have wanted to cut this race short. They say “give up, it’s too hard, the mountain is too high,” but here in West Virginia, you know a thing or two about rough roads to the top of the mountain. We know from the Bible that faith can move mountains and, my friends, the faith of the Mountain State has moved me. I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard.

In a place known as The Mountain State, her speech writer must have been particularly proud of that bit, but one can go even deeper into Hillary’s mountain metaphor.

Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800-1000 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams.

While the environmental devastation caused by this practice is obvious, families and communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day.

So here’s the deeper metaphor drawn from Hillary’s speech: Instead of doing the hard work of actually building herself up to climb to the top of the mountain, the Clinton Campaign has been doing everything it can to slice the top off that mountain and bring it down to their level by knee-capping her opponent.

Meanwhile, in doing so, she has completely poisoned the surrounding party environment and vastly hurt their chances of taking back the White House, all in the name of her own, sick profit.

As Hillary Clinton rolls to another victory among stupid white people (sorry West Virginia, but I call them like I see them: You are 95 percent white, only 15 percent of you went to college and you are a full 5 percent below national average on high school graduates) in a state that leans so red it isn’t even considered a swing state, a new Gallup poll says that a majority of Democrats want Hillary as Obama’s Veep:

“A new Gallup poll shows 55 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed think Obama should offer the New York senator a spot on his ticket.”

but the next sentence explains how that could possibly be true:

“That number is significantly influenced by Clinton’s supporters — close the 75 percent of her backers want the No. 2 spot to be offered, while only 43 percent of Obama supporters feel the same.”

It means like their candidate, Hillary supporters can’t let go. They are clinging tenaciously to the idea that she could still get back in the White House, that it’s not over, that she didn’t lose, couldn’t lose.

A majority of Obama supporters, meanwhile, seem to want a clean break and want to turn the page.

One Obama supporter who’s navigated racial politics for years thinks he will, and that even if he loses some white votes to racist sentiments, he’ll win other whites eager to vote for an African-American.

“There may be some folks who vote against him because he’s black and some who vote for him because he’s black. I think they cancel each other out,” said Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the Democratic Party in South Carolina.

“There will be people who wouldn’t vote for a black man come hell or high water. But we’re getting to the point where that is a minority.”